Surfrider Beach was originally known as Adamson Point. The La Costa center of shops and Malibu’s first post office was originally The Malibu Plaza. Big Rock was originally Malibu Mesas.
The Moonshadows site was originally called Canfield’s Big Rock Beach Cafe. The site of the abandoned Windsail restaurant was The Malibu Rendezvous, a diner that opened in the 1950s. Later it was Nantucket Light-with a real lighthouse- and then Carlos & Pepe’s. Next to it during the ’50s was Jody’s Lobster Quadrille, featuring live Maine lobsters, at the PierView site.
Who is Lily? Who is the woman who established the caf in the Pt. Dume shopping center that draws the crowd of mostly “curmudgeons” that formed the committee to help defeat Measure K?
Lily is Lillian Castro. She and her husband, Abel, opened the caf 10 years ago, a few years after emigrating from El Salvador. At the time, her sister ran the place, called Shen’s Pastry Shop. The Castros expanded the kitchen and menu. Now, burritos are the specialty.
The Castros live in Oxnard with their 13-year-old daughter, Lindsey, and make no comment on the parks measure or other political matters in Malibu. Lily works 80 hours a week and then takes Sunday off.
The Pt. Dume Plaza opened in 1970. At the time, it was an island of activity in a barren neighborhood. No office buildings were yet built across the street. No condos were built or visible anywhere near the corner of Dume and Heathercliff. Only the Lutheran Church (now the Malibu Stage Co.) across the highway was of any significant presence.
The “Shame on Pepperdine” banners didn’t seem to have much effect.
I like the clock at the new Prudential Malibu Realty building at Cross Creek. The location itself has some history. As far back as 1957 it was a real estate office for (Art) Jones & (Dave) Duncan. The building, according to old photos, had a different, and larger configuration. The entrance primarily fronted along PCH.
Two things about Bluffs Park. First, it seems to get more beautiful. Second, it seems to get more use. Visit on a weekend and note the mix of locals using the ball fields and outsiders using the picnic tables, fields and walkways. It truly is a regional facility. What kind of government would remove a park that people love?
The inspiration for this Along the PCH column, published intermittently (when Arnold wants a break) since 1995, was the ugly utility lines that hang across the highway coming up the coast. In ’95, I reported 347 lines between Topanga and the Malibu Pier. The current count: 338.
Another gas station bites the dust. Three of them have been wiped from the face of the Malibu earth in the past 15 years. The latest casualty began as a Richfield station.
The fight of Malibu vs. the evil Coastal Commission is intriguing. Malibu had 10 years to establish a Coastal Plan on its own before the state legislated the Coastal Commission to ram one down our throats. Why did we delay? Ironically, our earlier no-growth environmentalist councils delayed on purpose, encouraging Coastal Commission regulation because it presented another bar for developers to hurdle. Now even the environmentalist whackos fear the monster they created. The regulation snowball has turned into an avalanche. The Coastal Commission only pretends interest in the environment and visitor-serving interests. Read its proposal. Its true design is private property confiscation.
Things have changed since the lofty motives of Earth Day 30 years ago. “Environmentalism” today is the process of manufacturing scientific “facts” to justify implementation of outrageous laws so that power-hungry bureaucrats can deny basic property rights and long-held constitutional freedoms to the people they are supposed to serve. The Coastal Commission is California’s Politburo. Unaccountable. Unreasonable.
Enough private property rights infringement! Give us back our land! Let people determine for themselves what they wish for their own property!
Mulholland Highway begins near the Hollywood Freeway and winds its way atop the Santa Monica Mountains to Malibu at Leo Carrillo Beach. The original canyon name at that point was Sesquit Canyon.
I like the new Corral Canyon road. Not so steep.